As much as I wish to use eXpansion², I think it sadly won't be possible.
I'm currently running some TMNF & TM2 servers. On the tmnf servers I use Xaseco, unfortunately xaseco needs php5.4 & mysql.
In Debian 9 I could use php7 & mariadb but this will rip my tmnf servers...
So I guess eXpansion is not an option for me since php7 is required.

I understand the dilemma. You do have a few options. It is possible to have multiple php versions running on a server. Even though it' s not ideal.

A second option is to go through virtualization such as dockers. we actually do have a docker image if interested.

But I can understand that these are all complicated solutions. Nevertheless, keep in mind that support for php 5.* has been dropped by the php team so at some point you will need to upgrade your server.

We were aware that using php 7 wouldn't be a popular choice from the start.

Developper for The next generation, Clean and Powerfull controller eXpansion for your SM & TM server . Working on eXpansion² with full MP4 support and many other awesome features...

Yeah, that's mainly only for XAseco, it does simple mysql_ to mysqli_ wrapper functions... an idea to make XAseco work in php7 nicely, since the other language grammar hasn't changed for XAseco or the plugins.

On expansion2 we're using new language syntax and features which were introduced with PHP7.0. (I could list the language level syntax changes we're using... but I think it's in vain)

Anyway, I think using Docker might be the best solution as it runs in containers and keeps your server as is. If you're new to Docker, it might take some time to setup everything for the first time since you need to learn the tools, but I think it's worth the learning as Docker is getting more and more used on servers.

Yeah, that's mainly only for XAseco, it does simple mysql_ to mysqli_ wrapper functions... an idea to make XAseco work in php7 nicely, since the other language grammar hasn't changed for XAseco or the plugins.

Uhh, you tagged the post for XAseco2, not XAseco(1). And the includes file itself is not dependent on any XAseco variant.

Nicklander could still try this before resorting to more complex solutions.

XAseco 1 and PHP7 works great together with the wrapper reaby wrote. I run PHP7 on my Servers for over 2 years now, first with bueddls fix and than moved to a mix of reabys and bueddls solutions mixed.

XAseco 1 and PHP7 works great together with the wrapper reaby wrote. I run PHP7 on my Servers for over 2 years now, first with bueddls fix and than moved to a mix of reabys and bueddls solutions mixed.

Yes Debian 9.
I don't have problems with MariaDB, on 10.2.x i had to raise the query size limit because XAseco would crash without that, on 10.3.x that wasn't needed anymore and it did run out of the box.